REVIEW

published: 21 August 2015

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01011

“No more a child, not yet an adult”:

studying social cognition in
adolescence
Adelina Brizio 1,2 , Ilaria Gabbatore 3* , Maurizio Tirassa 1,4 and Francesca M. Bosco 1,4
1
Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Science, University of Turin, Turin, Italy, 2 Faculty of Communication
Science, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland, 3 Faculty of Humanities, Child Language Research Center,
University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, 4 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute of Turin, Turin, Italy

There are several reasons why adolescence is interesting. It is in this phase that an
individual finds herself fully facing the external world: basically equipped with the kind of
social cognition that s/he has acquired at home, at school and through the media during
childhood, s/he has now to meet a host of other, diverse views of what “reasonable,”
“appropriate,” or “expected” courses of thought and emotions are, in the wild with friends
Edited by: and peers, romantic or sexual partners, teachers and employers, and the society at large.
Antonella Marchetti, Furthermore, she is also expected, both at home and in the external world, to have a
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,
wholly new degree of control over such courses. While the idea that the development
Italy
Reviewed by:
of social cognition still progresses after infancy (and possibly throughout the life span)
Giulia Cavalli, is clearly gaining consensus in the field, the literature building on it is still scarce. One
Università eCampus, Italy of the reasons for this probably is that most tests used to study it focus on its basic
Tuula M. Hurtig,
University of Oulu, Finland component, namely theory of mind, and have been mostly devised for us with children;
Paolo Bertrando, therefore, they are not suitable to deal with the hugely increasing complexity of social
Università eCampus, Italy
and mental life during adolescence and adulthood. Starting from a review of the literature
*Correspondence:
Ilaria Gabbatore,
available, we will argue that the development of social cognition should be viewed as
Faculty of Humanities, Child a largely yet-to-be-understood mix of biological and cultural factors. While it is widely
Language Research Center, University
agreed upon that the very initial manifestations of social life in the newborn are largely
of Oulu, P.O. Box 1000, 90014 Oulu,
Finland driven by an innate engine with which all humans are equally endowed, it is also evident
[email protected], that each culture, and each individual within it, develops specific adult versions of social
[email protected]
cognition.
Specialty section: Keywords: adolescence, social cognition, theory of mind, mindreading, metacognition, self-reflection,
This article was submitted to development
Cognitive Science,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Introduction
Received: 29 April 2015
Accepted: 06 August 2015 There are several reasons why adolescence—and, more to the point, social life and social cognition
Published: 21 August 2015
in adolescence—is scientifically interesting. It is during this period that an individual finds herself1
Citation: fully facing the external world: basically equipped with the social competences that she has acquired
Brizio A, Gabbatore I, Tirassa M at home, at school and through the media during childhood, she has now to meet a host of other,
and Bosco FM (2015) “No more a
child, not yet an adult”: studying 1 Throughout the paper we will use either the feminine or the masculine when referring to unspecified human beings.
social cognition in adolescence. This is only made for the sake of readability and is not meant to convey any gender-related position or the idea that
Front. Psychol. 6:1011. there may or may not be differences in social cognition between genders. However important, such themes are simply
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01011 not relevant on the level of abstraction on which our arguments are cast.

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Brizio et al. Social cognition in adolescence

views of what “reasonable,” “appropriate,” or “expected” courses Unsurprisingly, a great deal of effort has been devoted within
of thought and emotions are, in the wild with friends and peers, the psychological sciences to investigating into the nature of
romantic or sexual partners, teachers and employers, and the human social cognition, its evolution in the species and its
society at large. Furthermore, she is also expected, both at home development in the individual.
and in the external world, to have a new degree of control over As far as phylogeny is concerned, starting from pioneering
such courses. research on so-called “Machiavellian intelligence” (e.g.,
Substantially analogous considerations hold when social Humphrey, 1976; Byrne and Whiten, 1985; Dunbar, 1993),
cognition is viewed in its reflective aspects, that is as a means it has been claimed that social cognition is at the very root of
of self-knowledge. Again, adolescence is a crucial phase in the the particular evolution of the primates’ mind. Technology and a
development of an individual’s understanding of herself, of her sophisticated use of artifacts would have played less important a
own feelings and desires, her own ways of reasoning, her own role, at least until the appearance of the first hominins, since when
reactions to external as well as internal situations, etc. And, again, the evolution of material cognition appears to have paralleled a
both the need and the actual ability to control these courses of further evolution of social cognition. The social life of humans,
thought and emotions change greatly during this period. like that of the other great apes, is highly complex: they form
However, the literature on social cognition in adolescence is long-term social relationship with others, understand the social
scarce and scattered, particularly if compared with other ages of relationship among third parties, and recognize that the actions
life, like infancy and childhood, or other domains of cognition: few of individuals are driven by their goals and by their perception of
empirical studies are available and there is no unitary theoretical the situation (Tomasello and Vaish, 2013).
framework within which to understand them. The phrase social cognition generally refers to “the various
Yet, a better understanding of adolescence would be crucial, psychological processes that enable individuals to take advantage
if only because a quantitatively impressive part of human kind of being part of a social group” (Frith, 2008, p. 2033). It is crucial
currently falls within such period. The present generation of to put an emphasis on words like cognition and phrases like to
people aged 10–24 years is the largest in history: at 1.8 billion, make sense, which allow to keep social cognition proper as distinct
it comprises a quarter of the world’s population. Nearly 90% from the mere influence that an individual’s behavior may or may
of them live in low- or middle-income countries where, due to not have on the behavior of other individuals (Bara and Tirassa,
higher fertility rates, they constitute a far greater proportion of the 2010), something which instead is universal in animals and even
population than in high-income countries (WHO, 2009). in plants.
Still another reason of interest is that several disorders—first An important facet of social cognition in primates is the
and foremost, schizophrenia or substance abuse, but also mood ability to understand the mental states of other individuals,
and anxiety-related dysfunctions—have their onset or witness an including their intentions, desires and beliefs, i.e., what is called
increase during adolescence and early adulthood. ToM, mentalizing, or folk psychology (Davies and Stone, 1995;
This makes it all the more interesting to understand what Nichols and Stich, 2003; Goldman, 2006; Blakemore et al., 2007;
social cognition is in this phase of life, at least within the widely Hutto et al., 2011). Together with other sophisticated cognitive
diffused theoretical framework that views a crucial aspect of social competences like social emotional processing (Burnett et al.,
cognition, namely theory of mind (ToM), as crucially involved in 2009), this capacity enables an individual to understand, explain
these disorders (Frith, 1992; for reviews, see Bosco et al., 2009a, and predict another individual’s actions and thus also allows
and respectively, Bosco et al., 2014a). for the negotiation of complex interpersonal decisions (Crone,
This paper will discuss social cognition in adolescence. We will 2013). Social cognitive processes include also basic perceptual
include both a review of the literature available and a theoretical processes such as face processing (Farroni et al., 2005), biological
discussion. We are aware that adolescence is, at least in part, motion detection (Pelphrey and Carter, 2008), and joint attention
a social construction, and that its features may vary between (Carpenter et al., 1998).
different sociocultural and historical therefore, we will do our It is not completely understood if, or to what extent, this
best to keep our arguments on a sufficiently general level to allow particular type of social cognition belongs to species other
for these differences. Yet, we are also aware that we are Western than ours (Heyes, 1998): it appears, however, that ToM-like
researchers, like most of our peers, and that this puts inescapable competences are more widely diffused among primates than what
biases in our analyses. is commonly thought (Tomasello, 2014). What can safely be
said is that, while the social life of great apes is mainly about
From Childhood to Adolescence competition, human societies are vastly more and distinctively
structured around and for cooperation (Tomasello and Vaish,
The social world is the most important realm of interaction of 2013), which of course founds on the further evolution of peculiar
human beings, that within which we spend the whole of our lives. cognitive competences, among which our special kind of social
Even when we are alone with ourselves, be it at home or during a cognition. In a word, the social life of humans is largely a matter
walk in the mountains, we are immersed in an environment which of intersubjectivity or sharedness (Premack and Premack, 1994;
is more or less completely made of social artifacts and products; Tirassa, 1999; Tirassa and Bosco, 2008).
even more crucially, our thoughts and feelings, as well as our As regards ontogeny, there is now a remarkable amount of
actions, are largely shaped by (and generally aimed at) the social empirical literature in psychology describing the first years of
world (Clancey, 1997). development of social cognition and mindreading. This body

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Brizio et al. Social cognition in adolescence

of literature is far from yielding a univocal sense of what a into how ToM is used to drive decisions and actions in everyday
child’s social cognition is or how it develops: rather, it appears life.
to be a multidimensional, highly complex patchwork of different When a situated framework is adopted, further problems pop
subareas, different theoretical or empirical approaches, and, up. One is that only one-to-one interactions are normally studied,
necessarily, different results. and even these are framed in terms of a subject who is asked
Most proposals in this area subscribe to a common to observe and explain another individual’s behavior, rather than
philosophical framework defined by a set of core assumptions, truly encountering him; that is, only a third-person perspective,
namely, as stated above, that the primary function of social instead of a second-person one, is adopted in practice. Another
cognition is to predict, explain, and control the actions of the problem is that only real-time (vs. retrospective), status-free,
others, which is made possible by the attribution, and hence the culture-free interactions are taken into account, thus obliterating
representation, of their mental states. The big issue is whether most of the complexities of real social life. Not only does the
such attributions are achieved by means of theoretical inference, study of ToM in adolescence and early adulthood constitute a
simulative analogy, or a bit of both (Gallagher and Hutto, 2008; methodological challenge, insofar as it requires the creation of
Hutto et al., 2011). new empirical tasks fit to capture age differences (Henry et al.,
Furthermore, as Hutto et al. (2011) argue, most theories 2013; Moran, 2013; Valle et al., 2015): it also calls for a radical
tacitly assume that human adults entertain a fully developed enrichment of the underlying theoretical frameworks.
mindreading; consequently, the main question concerns the Still another problem is that the ToM tasks that are normally
extent to which the mentalizing abilities of infants (if and when used with children tend to impose rigid requirements on what
they indeed have any) might compare to those of the adult. the “right” answer is. This might be a reasonable choice, insofar
However, there is a substantial lack of cognitive models of as it can be assumed that all children—or, at least, all children of
mindreading in adults (see the review in Apperly, 2013) or of what Western heritage—will basically follow the same developmental
the phrase a fully developed mindreading could precisely mean. trajectories. It is less obvious, however, that the same may be the
Gallagher (2006) notes that ToM approaches to the explanation case of adults. Here, it might be said, “mindreader is as mindreader
of how we come to understand others typically are abstract does”: there is no need to assume that a plateau should exist as
(third-person when they need to be second-person), mentalistic the final state of the ontogeny of social cognition, and even less to
(starting with the supposition that there are things like minds, assume that such plateau should be the same for all individuals in
beliefs, desires that we have no access to in others, and sometimes all historical contexts.
even in ourselves), and biased toward theoretical reason (when In line with at least part of the current literature (e.g., Apperly,
practical, situated reason is a better way to go: see also Bosco 2012; Blakemore, 2012; Bosco et al., 2014b), our stance is that
et al., 2009b). Overly intellectualizing what is involved in our the ontogeny of social cognition does not end with childhood;
basic encounters with others, they tend to forget emotion and instead, it continues through adolescence and the different
our ability to read it not in the minds of others, but on their ages of adulthood, as biological, social, cultural, educational,
faces, as well as in their gestures and expressive movements. Yet, autobiographical, reflective, and retrospective changes accrue and
if the basic ontology of human social competence is the same become ever more intertwined and stratified.
from the very beginning of mental life (as has been claimed, The whole issue is further complicated by the fact that
e.g., by Tirassa et al., 2006a,b), a more situated, more embodied the psychological literature on adolescence in its turn offers
approach to social cognition should be developed, allowing the an overwhelmingly ample (and still growing), but fractured,
more rationally sophisticated abilities to be a precious tool that picture. This makes it difficult to achieve a deeper and coherent
comes into play when it is necessary rather than the only nature of understanding of it (Moshman, 2005).
human intersubjectivity. In principle, and roughly stated, there can exist three possible
These problems notwithstanding, there can be little doubt that frameworks for understanding adolescence, namely as the exit
crucial advancements in our understanding of the ontogeny of from childhood, the entrance into adulthood, or a distinct stage
social cognition have been achieved in the last few decades from of human life, a bridge between what comes before and after it but
which knowledge is likely to proceed further, though probably still (comparatively) autonomous with respect to both. While each of
without a unitary theoretical framework in the foreseeable future. these views has its merit, we argue that the second is preferable:
Much less is known about the ways and directions in which adolescence as the beginning of adulthood (in agreement with
social cognition develops after infancy: despite the increasing Moshman, 2005).
interest in social cognition beyond childhood (e.g., Valle et al., Of course, this is not meant to imply that there can exist a
2015) knowledge of how it works in the adult or possibly decays divide between childhood and adolescence/adulthood: instead,
in the elderly still is scarce and scattered. There are several the adoption of a life-course perspective promotes understanding
possible explanations for this situation (Dumontheil et al., 2010). that the factors affecting the individual during childhood can
Firstly, the tasks that have been used to test ToM in early cumulatively affect her as an adolescent and an adult. At the
development are not appropriate for testing older children and same time, both normative and maladaptive patterns during
adolescents. Since most ToM tasks are passed by 5-years-olds, adolescence shape future trajectories (Sawyer et al., 2012),
ceiling effects might be obscuring the observation of any further extending the development of (social) cognition to include issues
development. Secondly, tasks typically enquire directly children’s apparently unrelated like active aging, early determinants of health
representations of another person’s mental states; they do not tap and risk factors.

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Physical and mental health is affected by a complex interplay (Sawyer et al., 2012). Furthermore, most societies throughout
of individual and social factors at personal, family, community, human history have not acknowledged the existence of an age
and national levels (Viner et al., 2012), as well as by individual called “adolescence,” at least as we understand it (e.g., Kett,
differences in cognitive abilities (e.g., Romer et al., 2011), 1977; Hine, 1999; Hopkins, 2014). Many of the 1.8 billion
attachment history (Bowlby, 1988), and personality traits. As we youngsters mentioned above are likely not, or not fully, considered
are discussing throughout this paper, all these factors undergo adolescents within their social contexts.
dramatic modifications during adolescence that tend to slow The beginning of adolescence is commonly identified with
down and stabilize as the individual becomes an adult—better yet, puberty, that is a complex biological transition which is universal
that adultness begins when these factors begin to slow down and in the human species, although the age at which it occurs
stabilize. Given this framework, it is all too obvious that physical may vary depending on features of both the individual and the
and mental health “leaks” heavily from adolescence into adult life. context.
The onset of schizophrenia, for example, typically occurs The decrease in the age of puberty onset that has taken
in late adolescence or early adulthood (Häfner and an der place since the twentieth century in high-income countries
Heiden, 1997; van Os and Kapur, 2009; WHO, 2015). Also, the (Sawyer et al., 2012) demonstrates the role of contexts in shaping
incidence of mood and anxiety-related dysfunctions increases individual trajectories, whereby the improvement in economic
during adolescence (Hankin and Abramson, 2001; Costello et al., and material conditions like childhood hygiene, nutrition, and
2002). health appears to play a major role. At the same time, in
Adolescence, however, also presents risks and disorders of those countries, sociocultural conditions like a longer education,
its own. For example, during this age individuals are probably possible delays or difficulties in employment, late marriage and
the fastest, the strongest and the most resistant to disease that childbearing have extended the duration of adolescence and
they will ever be; at the same time, their chances of dying changed its shape (Sawyer et al., 2012).
from putting themselves at risk—through aggression, crime, Adolescence looks different when viewed from one boundary
promiscuity, reckless driving, and drug use—also peak. It follows or the other: basically, its beginning depends on biological and
that precisely such behaviors are the first cause of death in this age material features of the context, while its end depends on cultural
group (Casey and Caudle, 2013). and social factors. This also entails that individual differences
Risk behaviors appear to be caused by diminished self- become more important with age, while the merely chronological
control, sensation-seeking behaviors and peer pressure. Their data become less important.
determinants are frequently searched in the brain development Around and with puberty begins a multidimensional
and neuronal connections (e.g., Steinberg, 2008; Telzer et al., and multilayered dynamics that involves every aspect of the
2013). Several authors have also found a peak in risk taking as individual’s life. The young members of several cultures undergo
evaluated by laboratory tasks involving emotions (Figner et al., specific rites of passage that take puberty as the symbolic
2009; Cauffman et al., 2010) and decision making (Wolf et al., threshold beyond which a child becomes an adult. Many cultures
2013). set one or more later thresholds after which the individual will
A better understanding of adolescence and its features in terms be legally considered an adult as far as her rights and duties of
of social cognition would thus have profound implications for a political, juridical, military, work and otherwise formal nature
protection and prevention. To relate scientific researches and are concerned.
methodologies to real-life issues appears to be crucial in the study However, these further thresholds are merely relevant to legal
of adolescence. Yet, a more critical analysis of the frequency and and social norms, so much so that Black’s (1990) law dictionary
the contexts of occurrence of risk-taking behaviors in adolescence defines adolescence as “the age which follows puberty and
(Willoughby et al., 2013), an articulated model to understand the precedes the age of majority.” Thus, an adult is anyone whom the
evolutionary functions of adolescence (Ellis et al., 2012), and a state legislation says is an adult, by modifying the permissions,
sound theoretical framework for social cognition during this age, obligations and prohibitions that in different ways change her
are still needed to complete the picture (and then to develop its social contexts and spheres of interaction as a member of the
implications for protection and prevention). community. However, there is no reason to think that these norms
depend on clear changes in the individual’s cognition, whether
What is Adolescence? social or otherwise.
A chronologically based definition promotes an understanding,
The rough definition of an adolescent as an individual who is no typical of Western societies, of adulthood as taking place within
longer a child but not yet a true adult might seem poor and fuzzy the individual, with no concern for the social context: the end
from a scientific point of view, but it is probably the most effective of adolescence is determined by law, with exclusive reference to
in capturing the complexity and contextual dependence of the age and not to the individual’s interaction with other people and
phenomenon called adolescence (e.g., Moshman, 2005; Hopkins, events (Schwartz et al., 2010). We opt for an operational definition
2014). of adolescence, instead of a legal/chronological one. Of course,
In discussing adolescence, indeed, not only do we have to this might turn out to be hardly manageable at the empirical level,
consider the high variability between individuals, but we also have where researchers need to have well-defined groups of subjects
to take into account that different societies define adolescence in available; yet, we think that, at least on the theoretical level, this
terms of ages and social roles with comparatively little consistency is a more sensible approach.

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In fact, there may be different formal threshold ages for the idea that adolescents are not adults, that they have a mental and
different facets of citizenship, and they may vary from nation social functioning all of their own, and so on. The coexistence of
to nation or from decade to decade according to the historical these two processes increases the complexity of the adolescent’s
context. mental and social life.
In other words, there is no biological threshold after puberty Furthermore, the adolescent represents herself at least partially
as well as no psychological threshold in a strict sense: the body, in accordance with the psychological, social, and cultural
including the brain, progressively changes until it slowly reaches a coordinates in which she finds herself. For the first time, she
mature stage, but it cannot be said to achieve a literally steady state, entertains a visible temporal and ontogenic horizon which she
nor a state which be clearly distinguishable from adolescence. Its may strive to achieve; that is, she represents her own future in
development never really ceases: it just slows down after the fast- a non-oneiric way and may make concrete choices that are, or
paced events ongoing during adolescence proper. The same, of at least aim to be, consequential. She thus oscillates between
course, holds for cognition in general, and for social cognition two centers of gravity. One such center is the awareness and the
specifically. expectation that she is soon going to be an adult: she has an idea,
This makes identifying an end to adolescence a particularly however approximate, of what this means, and might work toward
difficult task. A phrase like coming to terms with adulthood such end, e.g., by going to school or by learning the skills that (she
is vague enough to warrant widely (or even wildly) different thinks) will help her reach her goals as an adult. The other center
interpretations; and anyway, as we have said, adulthood may be of gravity is the fears and the other emotions that prospective
differently conceived of in historically different contexts or even adultness may ingenerate, and the desire to enjoy the space of
in different domains of an individual’s life. Thus, for example, in freedom which society allows her, in the fear of losing it with
many an affluent country it is comparatively normal to witness passing years.
a divergence between the age at which an individual is legally Thus, teleology in adolescence is different from what it could
and psychologically capable of living an autonomous adult’s life be during childhood. While in both periods the individual needs
and the individual or contextual conditions—like a particularly be considered in her present time, which she lives with the full
prolonged education, or the prices of housing and living—that autonomy that her age allows for, adolescence is characterized by
may make this socially or subjectively unaffordable (Sawyer et al., internal as well as external pressures and tensions between such
2012). In other countries or in other socioeconomic situations, of present and a future which is both the object of representations,
course, things may be hugely different: think, for example, of the expectations and positive and negative feelings, and a set of
many areas, in affluent as well as in less protected environments, cognitive, social and cultural tools that offer a scaffolding (again in
where youngsters may legally or illegally be employed or exploited a Vygotskian sense) which the individual has available to govern
as slave workers, prostitutes, soldiers, or even suicide bombers. In her own future, in a circularity whose features are those of a
this sense adolescence may be viewed as socially constructed by a partially self-fulfilling prophecy.
society that can and wants to afford it. Summing up, adolescence begins with puberty and is
A definition of adolescence as coming to terms with adulthood characterized by the intertwining of several kinds of changes:
may appear to imply that mental life during this age should be
viewed as a precursor to that of full adulthood and thus exclusively (i) biological and psychological changes that are universal,
or prevailingly understood in terms of the latter: the adolescent albeit occurring at different ages;
would then be nothing more than a “future adult.” This merits a (ii) socio-cultural and psychological changes that are practically
brief discussion. universal, at least in their abstract or symbolical form, called
There are indeed various ways in which a sort of teleology rites of passage;
belongs to this framework. At least some of the environments (iii) socio-cultural and psychological changes that are local and
in which the adolescent participates are explicitly or implicitly contextual, varying from the status of a young soldier, slave
conceived and structured so to offer the cognitive, social and or prostitute to that of a “teenager” in an affluent family;
cultural tools that will help her to acquire the knowledge, the (iv) the appearance of true autonomy and self-government, with
competencies and the other skills that will be required of her as an a still budding ability to deal with them and their internal
adult: schools, professional education, reformatories and military and external sources and consequences.
academies are, of course, the most visible, important and formally
structured environments of this kind, but there may be others Adolescence has no precisely identifiable end; it slowly shifts
as well. These environments in which the adolescent participates into adulthood as the individual comes to terms with his new
require her to think and act like an adult: many such contexts state. Coming to terms with adulthood may have many different
will be tolerant of “adolescent behavior,” but others will not, or meanings, depending on the groups and the society in which an
not completely. So far, we have a sort of a later-age, probably less individual finds himself, of the requests posed by his environment,
tolerant, equivalent of Vygotsky’s notion of the Zone of Proximal the resources and the opportunities he finds available, and so
Development (Vygotsky, 1978; Daniels et al., 2007). on. While puberty is a necessary biological and psychological
On the other hand, it should be noted that the opposite process transition, adulthood is defined contextually; in certain contexts
may also be at work, whereby typically in the affluent areas of the a reasonable level of adultness may be reached at different ages in
world adolescents are teenagers, that is a specific market segment different domains, and often many years after biological maturity,
with features of its own. Of course, this also requires selling the while in others a distorted adultness ends up to be superimposed

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on an individual who is not yet ready to cope with the ensuing set the civic and political fervor of this period will seldom be
of activities and interactions. Each of this paths may be laden with found again at later ages. Recent approaches to youth health
problems and tensions, which may then relapse on the individual’s and development have taken a turn from the traditional view of
psychological or social wellbeing. youths as victims or problems of society and passive recipients
of adult-directed interventions to one that portrays them as
What Adolescence Requires of Social powerful catalysts to community change by acting as resources
and competent citizens in their communities (Makhoul et al.,
Cognition
2012).
From the subjective point of view, at least in Western countries, We argue that these interests and activities fully engage social
adolescence is a time when an individual finds herself confronting cognition insofar as they require understanding social habits and
the feeling, simultaneously endogenous and exogenous, of norms, the ways in which different individuals may follow, exploit
becoming an adult. When she has become reasonably able to come or violate such norms, the positions that different individuals
to terms with these feelings, this phase ends; or, better, it shifts occupy in groups, organizations and the society at large, how they
seamlessly into “full adulthood.” have reached there and how they tend to interpret such position,
To conceive of adolescence as the beginning of adulthood and so on.
brings one to also view social cognition during this stage of life as Within areas more classically acknowledged as relevant to
remarkably different from what it used to be during (the various social cognition proper there are at least two other crucial realms
phases of) childhood and more akin to what it will be at later that need be considered about social life in adolescence, namely
ages. So, what developments in an individual’s social cognition interaction with peers and interaction with romantic or sexual
characterize this phase? partners. While neither of them appears, strictly speaking, in
Changes in social cognition during adolescence are both inward adolescence, both take on whole new nature and roles with respect
and outward. The latter may be summarized as a further opening to what they used to be in childhood.
toward the world. Peers may happen to be other individuals, different groups
Several studies show how social networks change across the of which the adolescent is or is not a member (including allied
life span. Interactions during infancy and childhood normally or various rival or antagonistic groups), other organizations of
take place within the family or in quasi-familiar environments which she is or is not a member, and so on. In a different
like primary school. The global social network grows during acceptation of interaction, peers may even be the representations
adolescence, when the individual gains emotional and behavioral of the peers that are projected by the various social and cultural
autonomy from parents, and then tends to decrease throughout contexts in which the adolescent participates, like her family, her
adulthood (for a meta-analysis, see Wrzus et al., 2013). friends, the media, or the society at large. Such projections may
An adolescent’s social network becomes wider but also more be descriptive or normative in different ways, ranging from the
impersonal in some of its zones. Adolescents are involved in rules and expectations that are enforced by the family or the group
situations that require them to take a role in a strict sense, of peers to narratives found in books and movies, marketing and
including, e.g., secondary school, working places and other advertising in the media, and so on.
social grounds characterized by formal and formally accountable Interactions with peers, like all interactions, require the
expectations and behaviors. The types of norms that this requires adolescent to handle habits and norms, hierarchies and statuses,
them to handle are not, or not mainly, behavioral rules in the form and to understand how arrays of other individuals do the
of do’s and don’ts like those that are learned during childhood; same. At the same time, however, these interactions may be
instead, they are complex systems of social positioning and “hotter” than others to adolescents: they are less abstract, more
reasoning that establish a certain worldview from which situated situated, and more emotionally and intellectually compelling.
social actions should be derived moment by moment. Things Therefore, these immediate social dynamics cannot be handled
are even more complicated, and more challenging for social with the tendentially formal rules with which the more removed
cognition, insofar as formality often is only part of the situation, ones discussed above are: dealing with peers thus tends to
a sort of facade that belies complex informal interpersonal, social, be subjectively more complex, more challenging, and more
and (largely speaking) political dynamics. potentially awkward.
On a still more abstract level, this new conception of social At least in several human societies, even more so may be the
worldviews, social grounds, and social roles typically expands to other crucial type of interaction that characterizes adolescence,
system-wide dynamics. The adolescent begins to interact with namely the romantic and/or sexual, which may (at least in
and within the society at large and its structures and institutions, principle) address the individual toward the construction of a
e.g., in terms of understanding and dealing with citizenship, or long-lasting relationship. This poses several problems. Courting
of getting intellectually interested or materially involved in local, someone, or letting someone court us, requires a complicated
national or international politics or economics. This is the age game of showing and concealing one’s feelings and intentions.
when an individual may begin reading the news, taking a political Even more importantly, it requires recognizing, labeling, and
stance, participating in demonstrations or, in more troubled wording one’s own feelings and emotions (like, “what is it that I
contexts, more or less voluntarily carrying a weapon in a war. feel? Is this what love is? or is it sexual desire?” and so on) as well as
Actually, possibly fueled by a still partial understanding of the those of the partner’s. All of this turmoil may often involve further
relevant dynamics and of their visible and hidden complexities, persons on one or the other side of the actual or potential couple,

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giving rise to even more complicated problems about cheating, period. Researches with children older than about four have
jealousy, rejection, and so on. used more complex ToM tasks (e.g., Happé, 1994; Baron-Cohen
Even such a brief outline of the changes that characterize et al., 1999); however, precisely these methodological differences
outward social life and social cognition during adolescence makes make it difficult to highlight continuities or discontinuities in
it clear why an analogously complex change in inward, that is development (Apperly et al., 2011).
reflective, social cognition is needed. Basically, the adolescent has In any case, it is hard to imagine that social cognition would not
to devise cognitive tools and ways to deal, on the one hand, with all change with adolescence, if only because the individual’s general
that is happening in the highly complex, multidimensional space cognitive abilities change, as well as her social experiences do
of her outbound social life and, on the other hand, with her own (Blakemore and Choudhury, 2006). In comparison with the large
rapidly changing personal identity. amount of researches investigating mentalizing abilities during
This requires her, among other things, to be able to monitor, childhood, however, only few studies explored the development
understand, explain, predict, abstract from, and, first and of these capacities in adolescence and their relations with other
foremost, feel, her own mental dynamics: the kind of questions she life-span developments (Colvert et al., 2008; Apperly et al., 2011;
has to answer may take forms like “what is this that I feel? whence Harenski et al., 2012).
do these thoughts and emotions come? how do I explain them? The ability to reason about the mental states of the others and to
where do they lead me? how do I judge them? are they good or are understand and take into consideration what they think, feel and
they bad? how do I control them? how do I share them with other believe appears to require the ability to take another individual’s
individuals, and how should I choose these individuals?”. perspective, which in turn is crucial to successfully manage social
Internal tensions concerning this dynamics may easily ensue, communication. Perspective taking is related to first-order ToM,
due to the sheer difficulty of dealing with such complex questions, since it involves what another person is thinking; also, it requires
accepting their consequences for oneself and for various other the awareness of one’s own mental states (first-person perspective)
persons, and accepting the continuous redefinition of personal and the ability to ascribe mental states to other individuals (third-
identity that they propose. It is in this age that social dynamics as person perspective; Blakemore and Choudhury, 2006).
diverse as shame, pride, isolation, rage, rebellion, leadership and In a study by Choudhury et al. (2006), children, adolescents
others thrive: in several senses, this is the end of innocence. It also and adults were tested with a perspective-taking task requiring
comes as no surprise that adolescents are more at risk of deviant them to imagine which emotion they themselves (first-person
behavior as well as of becoming victims of hoaxes, deceits, and so perspective) or another person (third-person perspective) would
on. feel in different scenarios. The results showed that the differences
Summing up, an individual’s social cognition during in reaction time between first- and third-person perspective-
adolescence is asked to deal in increasingly complex ways taking decreased with age, suggesting that proficiency at
with (and, circularly, her social cognition begins to provide her perspective-taking improves between childhood and adulthood.
with the ability of dealing with) different types of contexts: Dumontheil et al. (2010) tested the ability of a large sample
of children, adolescents and young adults (aged 7–27) to use
(i) her own mind; information received about another person’s point of view in a
(ii) other, specific individuals (family, friends, colleagues or perspective-taking communicative task. Again, the ability to take
classmates, romantic or sexual partners, and so on); another person’s perspective into account turned out to grow
(iii) other, generic individuals (strangers); from infancy through adolescence with further improvements in
adulthood.
(iv) groups and organizations and their individual members
Fett et al. (2014) showed that a greater inclination to take the
acting as such.
others’ perspectives into account was associated with a stronger
This requires an intertwining of social cognition with other pro-social approach toward others and a stronger trust during
“cognitive functions” like planning and organizing one’s own cooperative interactions. In interactions with an unfair partner,
actions and recognizing how others plan and organize theirs, this inclination was associated with a more drastic decrease of
processes of education, cultivation, and acculturation, an trust and less benevolent reciprocity.
appropriate management of autobiographical memory, and so on. Bosco et al. (2014b) assessed the ability to understand and
manage mental states in pre-adolescence and adolescence using
the ToM Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.: Bosco et al., 2009a; see
Data From Developmental Psychology also Laghi et al., 2014) and some well-known ToM tasks (namely a
ToM is generally considered a crucial part of social cognition and subset of the Strange Stories by Happé, 1994). Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-
has been extensively studied in developmental psychology. structured interview organized along four scales, each focusing
Children’s ability to understand and reason about mental states on one of the knowledge domains in which a person’s ToM may
has traditionally been investigated by testing their accuracy on manifest itself; it provides a detailed profile of different facets
mentalizing tasks, often based on false beliefs (Dennett, 1978), of ToM abilities, namely first- vs. second-order, first- vs. third-
which are typically passed by 3- or 4-years-olds (Wimmer and person, egocentric vs. allocentric perspective. It also explores
Perner, 1983; Wellman and Liu, 2004). As discussed above, these different types of mental states involved in ToM, namely beliefs,
kinds of tests rapidly reach a ceiling effect as the subjects’ age desires, positive emotions, and negative emotions. The results
increases; a gap thus emerges in the literature after the pre-scholar were that the performance at Th.o.m.a.s. improves with age,

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Brizio et al. Social cognition in adolescence

confirming that the ontogeny of ToM continues at least through view it as composed of an array of independent subfunctions that
adolescence. concur to its overall functioning, namely the abilities to recognize
Furthermore, in agreement with Goldman’s (1993) hypothesis one’s own thoughts and emotions, to relate them to the relevant
that adolescents can better reason about their own mental states interpersonal events, to understand the mental states of other
than about those of the others, the participants performed persons and to keep them distinct from (and possibly different to)
better at first-person than at third-person tasks. This appears those of one’s own, to acknowledge that mental states incorporate
consistent with the widely diffused perception that a typical a point of view and therefore are fallible, to describe mental states
feature of preadolescence and adolescence is a tighter focus on modifications in a coherent narrative, and to control and adjust
the attempt to understand oneself than the others. Also, again in internal states (mastery: more about this later). Based on this
agreement with previous literature (Wellman and Liu, 2004), the theoretical elaboration, Semerari et al. (2012) built and validated
adolescents performed better at first-order than at second-order a semi-structured interview called the Metacognition Assessment
ToM tasks. No significant difference emerged, instead, between Interview (MAI), that has been administered to persons with
the allocentric and the egocentric viewpoint. schizophrenia or personality disorders. What is relevant to our
The performance at Strange Stories did not reveal any current purposes is the notions that social cognition is a highly
significant age-related difference; however, there is no evidence in complex faculty, far from being reducible to simpler processes,
the literature that there should be any. While Strange Stories are even if complex in their own way like ToM, and that there can
considered advanced ToM tasks, they were originally developed be individual or ontogenetic differences in the persons’ capacity
for children (Baron-Cohen, 1989; Happé, 1994) and thus they too to handle it.
are probably unfit for the study of mentalization at later ages. Metacognitive mastery has been correlated with quality of life
Th.o.m.a.s. also investigates the ability to deal with different (Lysaker et al., 2005) and the complexity of social functioning
types of mental states (beliefs, desires, positive emotions, negative (Lysaker et al., 2010) in persons with schizophrenia. In general,
emotions). In Bosco et al. (2014b), the participants scored higher metacognition appears to be able to influence several aspects
at negative emotions than at the others, a result that could be of experience (Metcalfe, 1996) such as self-regulating learning
explained with the turbulent psychological and relational changes (Efklides, 2009) and decision making (Weil et al., 2013). An
that characterize adolescence, together with a sort of existential impairment in the ability to reflect on and to use knowledge
confusion which is likely to lead a person to reflect more deeply about the mental states of one’s own and those of the others
on her own negative emotions. may hamper the ability to cope with complex psychological and
The ability to make inferences about emotions is called affective relational challenges and thus lead to dysfunctional reactions to
ToM and may be conceptualized as the integration of cognitive individual or interactional difficulties (Lysaker et al., 2010). Given
ToM (inferences about knowledge and beliefs) and empathy the dramatic number of new experiences and transformations
(Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2010). In a study by Sebastian et al. characterizing adolescence, these issues and their interplay may
(2011), adolescents made more errors than adults in choosing the end up playing a significant role.
appropriate ending of vignettes depicting a character’s response Demetriou and Bakracevic (2009) investigated metacognitive
to a companion’s emotions. Vetter et al. (2013) used film clips ability asking adolescents and adults to assess their own
depicting the manifestation of emotions to investigate affective performance on propositional, spatial and social reasoning tasks;
ToM across adolescence, finding that it develops with age. They this self-evaluation was found to improve from adolescence to
also found that it correlates with executive functions (specifically adulthood.
inhibition) throughout adolescence until young adulthood. Weil et al. (2013) analyzed the development of metacognitive
The phrase executive functions refers to the cognitive processes ability from adolescence to adulthood, during a visual task
involved in goal-directed actions, such as those that allow implying decision-making processes. Their results showed that
an individual to control and coordinate his thoughts and the awareness of one’s own perceptual decisions undergoes a
behavior (Shallice, 1982). These are, for example, selective prolonged developmental trajectory during adolescence, again
attention, working memory, decision-making, and inhibition. suggesting that metacognitive ability significantly improves with
Several behavioral studies show that the ability to manage tasks age.
like inhibitory control (Leon-Carrion et al., 2004), processing
speed (Luna et al., 2004), working memory and decision-making Somatic Changes and Brain Maturation
(Hooper et al., 2004) continues to develop during adolescence.
A correlation between affective ToM and inhibition has also Adolescence brings with itself a vast array of bodily modifications.
been found in studies conducted with young adults (Bull et al., Some of these modifications, namely those in the brain, are not
2008; Ahmed and Miller, 2011). In pre-school children, executive immediately available to the subject’s awareness, while others are
functions have been shown to play an important role in ToM external and dramatically important from a subjective point of
performance (Carlson and Moses, 2001), which suggests that they view.
may play an important role in the subsequent developmental Adolescence, for example, normally entails a sudden, rapid, and
stages as well. remarkable upgrowth. One finds herself watching the world from
Another construct which is commonly held to be closely related about the same level from which adults watch it, sometimes from
to social cognition is metacognition, defined as the ability to an even higher one. This alone will obviously yield a difference
think about thinking (Flavell, 1979). Semerari et al. (2003, 2007) in how one perceives social relations, hierarchies and statuses,

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Brizio et al. Social cognition in adolescence

power (whether social or crudely physical), dependability, and so progress of puberty in girls is related to the functional maturation
on. Perspective taking here is laden with an experiential burden of the social brain.
that makes it impossible to reduce it to a “cognitive” issue in the Finally, Goddings et al. (2014) found that puberty has a
classic acceptation of such word. The growth of muscle mass and important role in influencing the subcortical development of
the increase in agility and physical strength add to this change of the brain. They analyzed data from longitudinal magnetic
one’s body image. resonance imaging scans of individuals aged 7–20 years, finding
Even more the same holds for sex-related morphological an interactive puberty-by-age effect on the volume of the
changes, like the development of primary and secondary sex nucleus accumbens, the globus pallidus and the caudate: these
characteristics. To find oneself being the agent or the recipient of regions are involved in reward-seeking behaviors and decision-
sexual attention, sexual desire and sex-related activities, as well as making processes (Gottfried, 2011). Goddings et al. (2014) also
not being one despite one’s desires or needs, has an obvious impact found pubertal effects on the growth of the amygdala, which
on one’s social attitudes. To acquire and to come to terms with the is involved in emotion processing. Pubertal changes include
relevant set of thoughts, feelings, emotions, habits and so on, both modifications in the neurobiology of stress and emotions, capable
in oneself and in the others, is a seemingly impossible task that, of shaping reactivity to stressors and affective stimuli (Spear,
nevertheless, needs be accomplished with reasonable speed and 2009). These modifications may precipitate the emergence of
efficiency. psychopathologies in vulnerable individuals and contribute to the
A completely different set of data and considerations is supplied emergence of psychological disorders (Dahl, 2004; Walker et al.,
by other, more classic areas of research. 2004).
Several authors suggest that the endocrine changes that Globally considered, these modifications appear to be related
characterize puberty influence brain development and to several aspects of mind functioning that characterize social
restructuring during adolescence (Sowell et al., 2002; Lenroot cognitive ability (see also Moriguchi et al., 2007). It probably
et al., 2007; for reviews, see Peper et al., 2011; Peper and Dahl, is no coincidence that many of the functions whose cerebral
2013). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies counterparts undergo such modifications are those in which
provide evidence of the plasticity of the adolescent’s brain, adolescence looks more stormy and potentially unsafe. Yet, brain
characterized by a general structural development, a synaptic studies can hardly link brain modifications to a person’s social
neuronal reorganization and increase in connectivity (Sowell and cultural experience. In this sense, the “social brain” should
et al., 2003). Social cognition, particularly the ability to mentalize, be viewed and studied as a feature not of the individual, but
is associated with a network of brain regions commonly referred of the contexts in which the embedded, situated, and embodied
to as the “social brain” (Frith and Frith, 2003). This network individual participates.
appears to be the counterpart of the ability to recognize other
persons’ mental states like intentions, feelings, emotions, desires Conclusion
and beliefs, and to use such recognition to understand their
behavior. The social brain includes several areas: the medial Adolescence is an extremely interesting as well as challenging
prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), topic for the study of social cognition.
the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus (STS), the A first issue is that context-free studies can hardly be devised.
amygdala and the anterior insula (Blakemore, 2008). The social, cultural, educational, economic, and autobiographical
Several studies offer empirical evidence of the development situations in which the individuals participate play too important
of the social brain during the adolescence (for a review, see a role in how they experience and enact their social life. For
Blakemore, 2008). Recently this subject has received renewed the same reason, it is likely impossible to devise empirical
interest. Mills et al. (2014) studied the structural development methodologies similar to those that are commonly employed in
of the social brain from late childhood through adolescence and the study of other aspects of the functioning of the mind or of
into adulthood. They found that gray matter volume and cortical the social life in infancy and childhood. Not coincidentally, a
thickness in the mPFC, the temporoparietal junction and the comparatively advanced ToM task like the Strange Stories (Happé,
posterior STS decreased from childhood into the early twenties. 1994), differently to the false-belief tasks that are used with
The anterior temporal cortex increased in gray matter volume children, is built around a narrative infrastructure and its contents
until adolescence and in cortical thickness until early adulthood. are culturally localized.
The surface area for each region peaks in pre-adolescence or A second issue is that the empirical methodologies should
early adolescence before decreasing into the early twenties. The be adjusted to keep into account the vast differences in social
authors suggested that the reductions in gray matter volume may situations, cognition, and actions that exist between different
reflect synaptic reorganization and concluded that the social brain contexts, between different individuals, and between the different
network continues to develop structurally across adolescence domains and activities in which the same individual may
before relatively stabilizing in the early twenties. participate.
Klapwijk et al. (2013) analyzed the relations of a set of endocrine A third issue is that the notions that are generally employed for
and somatic pubertal indicators with functional connectivity in the study of social cognition, like ToM, are probably insufficient
the social brain (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, right posterior to account for it. In a phenomenological approach such as
STS and right temporoparietal junction) involved in emotion that adopted, for example, by Gallagher (2006), the notion of
processing in girls aged 11–13 years. Their results suggest that the a ratiomorphic, purely inferential ToM appears to be far too

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Brizio et al. Social cognition in adolescence

simplistic to account for the richness and the complexity of human an end, that take place in the world and in which we, and
social experience. The alternative proposed by Gallagher is in the others, may happen to play a part (see also Goffman,
terms of a narrative competence, which in its turn would be 1959).
grounded in the direct perceptual access to the intentions and the Adolescence may then be viewed as an age in which the
feelings of others: in this approach, second-person interactions narratives change suddenly and profoundly, opening a world of
would replace the more typically studied observations in the new possibilities, new promises, new dangers. Cast abruptly in
third-person; and, of course, the situated, embedded, embodied, this new world, the adolescent has to wade through it, finding her
autobiographically rich first person would be the center of gravity own way to deal with the new situations in which she wants and
of the whole narrative. needs to find herself. In this task, social life is simultaneously a
Theory of mind would then intervene when a breakdown huge source of problems, opportunities, and resources. That most
occurs, analogously to how theories in naïve (or non-naïve) of us survive this storm to find comparatively calmer waters is one
physics intervene when our bodily experience, normally grounded of the most amazing feat of human kind.
in habits and choreographies, encounters a breakdown.
Thus, according to Gallagher and Hutto (2008), it is not the Acknowledgments
inner life or the mental life of the others that we attempt to
access, but their life in its worldly contexts, which is best captured This research was supported by Cassa di Risparmio di Torino
in a narrative form. Life events, including social interactions, (CRT) Foundation, Vivomeglio, 2013. Project: Rehabilitation of
happen as stories with a beginning, a development, and possibly communicative deficit in patients with schizophrenia.

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